ATG Commerce Programming Guide

Setting Up Product Comparison Lists

Commerce sites often require the ability for a site user to compare items in the product catalog. A simple site may offer the user a single product comparison list and enable the user to add and remove products from the list, as well as compare the properties of the products in the list. A more complex site may offer the user multiple comparison lists to compare different types of items (for example, a list to compare cameras, a different list to compare televisions, and so on). ATG Commerce provides a product comparison system that enables you to meet both simple and complex requirements.

The default implementation of the product comparison system enables the user to compare any number of products and to do so using the products’ category, product, SKU, and inventory information. (You can extend the system to include additional information.) Additionally, it enables the page developer to display product comparison information as a sortable table, which the user can manipulate to change the sort criteria for the displayed information.

This section describes the default implementation of the product comparison system and includes the following subsections: